Author Marilynne Robinson: We’re all acting beneath our dignity and the media is making it worse

n this clip, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Marilynne Robinson tells Bill Moyers that as a society — and that includes politicians — we are stooping way too low in the way we treat and speak to one another. Watch:

Robinson says: “[W]e’ve gotten into the habit of condescending to one another so that we’re trying to get little cheers from the audience rather than actually dealing with people in good faith, telling them what they need to know, acknowledging the complexity of incredibly complex problems that we have… I think that a lot of people use this tribal language and so on to enflame other people and get little groups to give donations, whatever. But basically, it is beneath their dignity.”

And the media’s appetite for sensationalism, Robinson says, “reinforces the tendency toward meanness and public discourse.”